Quote:but how does one create his or her own style. Is it a process of combining different martial arts that work for you or..

The more commonly used method is learning different arts and then mix things. For example, you took Taekwondo, Boxing and Judo. You use the kicks from Taekwondo and replace the punches and fighting stances with those from Boxing; Judo adds to the grappling/throwing aspect of your style.

1) First of you need a basic philosophy to base everything on. In my case, I believe in an eye for an eye, full contact, blunt force trauma that will rattle his ancestors. Hence, in my case it would involve a lot of striking, conditioning, basically, a military style training regime with no fancy stuff techniques, just stuff that works and is simple. Less is more.

2) Techniques. You can 're-invent' or just steal some. I stole a lot from MT, Boxing, Judo, Jujutsu, Karate and some Bajiquan.

3) Train. You can 're-invent' or just steal from other arts. I stole a lot from Judo and boxing.

4) Aliveness or dead method. Are you for sparring and 'alive' training or are you for dead training like katas and no-resistance training?

5) Get some students. You can hire some or just steal. I stole some.

Those are some basic ideas how to create a style. I call mine "Thief-kune-do".

-Taison out

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I got two fists.. Don't make me use my head as well!

i guess you can call it combining arts but best way to start is to simply start doing martial arts yourself and then try to expand your martial knowledge and experience. You'll find things that you like and that you dont like. The things you like tend to stay with you as you move about in your martial journey.

ex. start with TKD and then you discovered boxing and learned some (as long as you continue or keep what you have learned in TKD) and then your curiosity is peaked by Judo. Assuming you're keeping everything that you learned with you, you'll have elements of TKD, Boxing and Judo in your own personal "style."

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"you're going to work till you wish you were dead and then keep going.."
-Sgt Slaughter

Quote:thanks guys. what i had in mind was trying to learn original jun fan jkd and then adding different techniques by watching videos from totalvid.com. would that work? thanks again. ant

You're better off getting hands-on instructions rather than learning from videos. What you can learn from videos is limited to what you can see, thus you're doing nothing more than imitating what you see.

This may not be the answer to what the thread author was looking for, but it's MY perspective on the topic.

All we really have are fundamentals of technical execution. How we perform those fundamentals will defer from person to person. Over time, your own style is developed NATURALLY based on your own physiology.

Thus, creating your own style is taking the fundamentals of what you're learning and then ADAPTING them to your own unique physiology.

For example; the fundamentals of boxing are taught to practically every new boxer, yet its obvious that not all boxers fight the same way. They have developed their own "styles" based upon their own physiology, strengths and weaknesses. Thus any two boxers may have the same fundamentals, but will often "look" different than each other when boxing in the ring.

This is true of any art. Another example is in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The fundamentals of BJJ are taught to practically every new white belt. Over time however, it becomes obvious again, that many BJJ guys will take those fundamentals and apply them differently and will not fight the same way. Thus any two BJJ guys may look dramatically different from each other when fighting even though they are applying the exact same fundamentals.

Expanding on this example, the Machado brothers all teach "Machado Jiu-Jitsu" but they all have their own unique "styles". Rigan Machado will favor playing a crushing top game and Jean Jacques will play an aggressive guard game, for examples. These are based on their own unqiue tendencies, strengths, weaknesses, temperaments, and physiology as mentioned before. And even though they may both play top or guard positions, they way they APPLY their skills and play those positions will be somewhat different from each other and unqiue to themselves.

Thus again, they take the same unwavering fundamentals and apply them differently - hence, they have their own "styles".

This is really all you have because of the fact that we all (as humans) have truly only so many ways of hitting, kicking, grappling and so on. The mechanics of the human body are limited to only so many "ways" of doing things.

Now some folks see the different methods of training as being different "styles". Ultimately however, those "different methods" are really only training to develop exactly the same things. We then end up "splitting hairs" trying to define all these different styles which only again, end up developing the same mechanics.